There have been proposed various types of technologies for managing a file in a computer system.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication (KOKAI) No. 2003-271431 discloses a conventional technology for managing a file. According to the conventional technology, a file name is created based on a word input by the user to manage a file with the file name. Since the file name is created based on the input word, the user can easily specify the file using the file name as a search keyword.
There has been a tendency to manage a file in a plurality of places. For example, a file created by a computer may be stored in an external hard disk for backup purposes. In recent years, cloud computing has been proposed as a service to use a computer. Accordingly, there is a demand for matching a file in a local computer to a file managed in the cloud.
In a file management system in such circumstances, it is important when the same files in a plurality of places are matched. A conventional technology has been proposed to match the same files. With the conventional technology, upon detecting a file updated in one storage device, the update is reflected in another storage device, a computer, a service, or the like.
According to the conventional technologies, while the user is editing a file, the matching process is performed each time the user saves the file, resulting in a heavy processing load. Especially, in the former conventional technology, only an appropriate file name is created to manage a file, and it is not taken into account to manage the same files in a plurality of places.